Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Summer Vacation

I came into some money so after 10 years of non-stop, ceaseless blogging I will be retiring to enjoy the last summer of life.

"State officials say they are working diligently to return all unclaimed assets and have a team of investigators focused on tracking down owners of the biggest accounts. But sometimes it’s hard to find the rightful owners. And other times they just don’t seem to want their money back. Who knew giving away a half-million dollars could be so difficult?"

"Police interview some of the 12 girls found in Pa. man’s home" Associated Press June 21, 2016

FEASTERVILLE, Pa. — Police on Monday interviewed several of the 12 girls found living with a Pennsylvania man charged with sexually assaulting a teenager.

Authorities have said the teenage victim was given to the suspect by her parents when she was 14.

Officials acting on a tip Thursday found Lee Kaplan, 51, at his Bucks County home along with the girls, ranging in age from 6 months to 18 years. The 18-year-old told police she and Kaplan have two children, a 3-year-old and a 6-month-old.

Kaplan and the teenager’s parents are jailed on $1 million bail.

District Attorney David Heckler said authorities are seeking evidence of any crimes against the children.

Kaplan fathered two children with the teenage girl whose family gave her to him, a criminal complaint alleges. The girl’s father reportedly told investigators that his daughter was given to Kaplan ‘‘in thanks for helping his family out of financial ruin.’’

"British Parliament holds special session to honor slain lawmaker" by Steven Erlanger New York Times June 20, 2016

LONDON — Financial markets took note of new opinion polls suggesting voters will favor remaining in the union in Thursday’s referendum. Traders have been jittery as polls have fluctuated, but....The killing of Cox changed all that. That's the new narrative to keep the UK in the EU anyway.

Echoing the sentiment of others, Stephen Kinnock, a Labor member who shared an office with Cox, a friend for 20 years, said her legacy must be a politics of “hope not fear, respect not hate, unity not division.” Kinnock hit out at a poster calling for Britain to leave the EU that showed a line of refugees under the headline “Breaking Point.”

On Monday, a leading member of the House of Lords and a former chairwoman of the Conservative Party, Sayeeda Warsi, said that for similar reasons she was switching sides and would now support remaining in the union.

One of the most prominent Muslim politicians in Britain, she accused the “Leave” campaign of peddling xenophobia and racism, and said moderate voices favoring an exit from the bloc had been drowned out.

The surge in financial markets suggested growing investor confidence that the uncertainty associated with a ‘‘leave’’ vote in Thursday’s referendum would be avoided....

".... When you look at history and all the "lone nut" killers....what was
going on with these three men is actually a pat formula. Find a troubled
loner....befriend him, mentor him, radicalize him and then set him up
to perform an illegal activity. I submit that the deep state has set up
losers like these three men all across the Western World...perhaps all
over the world....it's such a great formula....on the taxpayer's dollar,
dontchaknow. A side benefit is that all this "discovering of losers",
mentoring, setting up stings, etc. keeps the corrupt side of "law
enforcement" very busy....so that they don't have time to wander astray
(eg. do their jobs and catch real criminals). Also, it gives them well
paid taxpayer-funded jobs. It also puts the police in the position of
being blackmailable...and therefore "made men"...quiet and
compliant...IMO, ready for their future "police state" assignments....

I don’t have one. Let’s see if together we can form a reasonable view.

Let’s start with the basic first question. Before there can be a murder declared, there must be a body. Has anyone seen on TV or in newspapers pictures of dead bodies? Bodies should be readily available if the reports are correct that fifty people were killed and 50 or more were wounded and in hospital.

I cannot bear the presstitute TV and print media. These are full-time propaganda organizations. Hopefully, some of you hold your nose and watch the news and can fill in the spaces. Has anything we have been told been confirmed by any real evidence?

Initially, I saw a CNN newscast and a RT report. The reports were heavy with verbiage of blood being all over the place, but the only visual evidence offered were three people, supposedly injured, being helped, not by medics or first responders, but by ordinary folks. A couple of people were helping a guy with tattoos in place of a shirt, but there was no sign of blood. Several people were helping people in police uniforms to carry a person who they dumped in the back of a pickup truck, not in the cab. About 6 people were carrying a person stretched out prone (no stretcher) down a street.

There was no blood and it looked like a crisis acting performance. Why prone? Is an injured person really able to keep his body stiff so that he can be carried along prone parallel to the ground? Where are they taking him? Is this just a camera walk-by? http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2016/06/12/orlando-nightclub-shooting-witness-sot.cnn/video/playlists/orlando-nightclub-shooting/ What has become of the protocol that untrained people are not to attempt to help injured people? When police arrive at a scene, they usually run off bystanders, not recruit them to assist their activities or allow them to carry away the wounded and dead.

Readers have noticed that the visual evidence does not match the verbal reports. Readers report that Fox “News” and MSNBC repeatedly show the same footage described above of bystanders carrying supposedly injured victims whose facial expressions are completely unstressed and show no pain, fear, or blood.

So has anyone seen any dead bodies? Any body bags? Any wounded taken to hospitals in ambulances? Any of the hospital wounded interviewed by TV reporters? Has any reporter checked with the morgue?

Allegedly, people inside the massacre location made cell phone calls and texted. But no one took photos or videos? Are there no security cameras? No doormen to notice a heavily armed person enter?

With 50 people killed and 50 or more wounded and reports of oceans of blood, there should be plenty of evidence Have any of you seen any of it?

As far as I know, dead bodies, other than those of the perpetrators themselves, seldom if ever emerge from the terrorist attacks. No dead bodies materialized from the Paris attacks except those of the alleged perpetrators. No dead bodies ever emerged from the Sandy Hook shootings. The only dead bodies I recall from the San Bernardino shooting were the husband-and-wife-alleged-perpetrators, and their hands were handcuffed behind their backs. Do police handcuff dead people who the police have shot to pieces? I don’t remember dead bodies from Brussels, just reports of dead bodies.

One could say that the media is averse to invading the privacy of dead people and their relatives by showing dead bodies, or that the media doesn’t want to show gruesome scenes—except for the videos of Muslim terrorists cutting off people’s heads. But by now the unanswered questions from the various shootings have created so much skepticism that a person would think the media would provide corroborative evidence for the official claims.

Maybe they have. As I admit, I don’t watch the presstitute news.

(Blog editor's note: Nor do I. My only exposure to the main$tream media is the Bo$ton Globe)

In order to shoot 100 people, the principal weapon allegedly used, an AR-15, would have had to have been reloaded several times, a procedure that takes enough time for people to rush the shooter and overpower him.

Is it possible for one person to shoot 100 people successfully but not be able to shoot even one cop when police appear? Remember the Charlie Hebdo event. The two killers were highly professional when they wiped out the magazine staff and a policeman in the street, but later when confronted by police they were so hapless and incompetent as to suggest that they were not the same people. Remember the San Bernardino shootings. Three eyewitnesses said that the shooters were three muscular males dressed in black, not a husband and diminutive wife with a new baby.

What is most troublesome about these shootings is that the story seems already prepared by the government and is immediately set. We are fed the story before there is time for investigation by government or media. The media never investigate. The media just repeat the government’s story over and over until it is set in everyone’s mind. Contrary evidence is just discarded.

The alleged perpetrators are always killed, so we never hear from them. The only survivor of the various terrorisms is the younger Tsarnaev brother who has been held incommunicado. We have never heard directly from him.

One might think that by now the US media would have at least a smidgen of skeptcism. After all, for the past 15 years we have wasted trillions of dollars in wars in the Middle East based on lies that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and Assad used chemical weapons against his own people. So why is the media willing to accept whatever the government says without any investigation or even raising a question?

The chairman, co-chairman, and legal counsel of the official 9/11 Commission have said publicly that the commission was lied to by the US government, that information was withheld from the commission, and that the commission was “set up to fail.” If the government will not tell the truth to the 9/11 Commission, why would the government tell us peons the truth?

It is not reporting merely to repeat the government’s claim. But that is all we get from the payroll jobs, unemployment and inflation reports to terrorism reports and claims of “Russian aggression.”

Send your emails with URLs of news broadcasts showing dead bodies and other real evidence. Don’t send in your speculations. They might be interesting and on the mark, but what we are trying to do is to see if there is any real evidence in behalf of this latest story of mass slaughter inside a night club.

It will be difficult, perhaps even impossible, to get any truth out of the Orlando shooting. Too many vocal and well organized interest groups have a strong stake in the government’s explanation. It comes to the aid of the anti-Muslim lobby and the Trump campaign which want Muslims kept out of the US and those here arrested and deported. It comes to the aid of the gun control lobby. It comes to the aid of the progressive-left that wants to normalize homosexual and transgendered people, thus the outpouring of sympathy for those shot in the homosexual night club. It comes to the aid of the spy industry and the police state that want no check on their activities. It comes to the aid of Washington’s murderous foreign policy—so what if we blow up Muslim children—look what they do to us when they grow up, which is what the Israelis say about the Palestinians. It comes to the aid of the neoconservatives and the military-security complex for whom wars against Muslims advance their agenda and fatten their pocketbook.

All of these interests are far more powerful than the right of peons to know the truth.

"Orlando gunman told police US must stop bombing Syria and Iraq" by Eric Lichtblau New York Times June 20, 2016

WASHINGTON — Omar Mateen, the gunman in this month’s massacre in an Orlando nightclub, told a crisis negotiator less than an hour after the attack began that the United States must “stop bombing Syria and Iraq” and threatened more attacks, according to an FBI account released Monday.Thus anyone who feels the same about the massacre of bombings is a "terrorist."

The original material put out by the FBI early Monday omitted any mention of the Islamic State in Mateen’s conversations with law enforcement officials. But hours later, the FBI released a fuller, unedited account of a 911 call from the Pulse nightclub.UNREAL!

Since when was the last time the FBI issued an unedited account of anything?

The bureau decided to release more material after coming under harsh criticism, particularly from Republican leaders, who accused the administration of censoring references to Islamic radicalism.This is all part of the psyop.

“I pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” the leader of the Islamic State, Mateen told the 911 caller in Arabic in a phone call from inside the club at 2:35 on the morning of the June 12 attack, according to the FBI’s unedited account of that phone call. “May God protect him, on behalf of the Islamic State.”Airstrike got him again?!

In a joint statement, the FBI and Justice Department said the protests over the government’s initial decision to edit out parts of Mateen’s statements “caused unnecessary distraction from the hard work that the FBI and our law enforcement partners have been doing to investigate this heinous crime.”

While reissuing the transcript, the FBI continued to withhold parts of later phone calls on the morning of the attack between the gunman and hostage rescue negotiators.Since when do they reissue a redacted report? So when are they going to release information in regard to the murder of Todashev in Florida?

In the portions that were released, Mateen warned — falsely, it turned out — that there were bombs in a car outside the nightclub and explosives inside it, and that “you people are gonna get it, and I’m gonna ignite it if they try to do anything stupid.”

In a series of calls between 2:35 and 3:24 a.m. during a standoff with the police, Mateen also spoke in Arabic and claimed responsibility “in the name of God the merciful,” and linked his attack to the terrorist attacks last year in and around Paris.

At a news conference in Orlando, Ronald Hopper, an assistant agent in charge of the bureau’s Tampa Division, said the gunman had made 911 calls during the shooting in a “chilling, calm and deliberate manner.”That's the point where this propaganda jumped the shark and became absurd.

Negotiators spoke to him for a total of 28 minutes over three calls, the FBI said.Why did it take the police so long to get there?

The FBI’s account of the emergency calls included no mention by Mateen of any hatred of gays or a desire to attack a gay nightclub in particular; the bureau has been investigating the attack as a possible anti-gay hate crime, but the material released Monday offers nothing to back up that theory.It's called an official whitewash, folks.

John Mina, Orlando’s police chief, addressed a question about whether any of the victims were hit by police bullets in the initial shootout with officers shortly after 2 a.m. The police have said that most of the 49 people killed and 53 wounded were shot in the first minutes of the rampage before Mateen holed up in a bathroom with hostages.!!!!!!!!!!!

“That’s part of the investigation, but here’s what I will tell you: Those killings are on the suspect,” Mina said.What this signals is the official story is FALLING APART!

It was the first time that the chief had answered the question in a way that left open the possibility that officers could have killed club patrons by accident.I saw such things on the blogs.

In an interview, the SWAT commander, Mark Canty, said he doubted any fatalities resulted from police bullets. “I know my guys did the best they could,” he said.OMG!

The medical examiner, Dr. Joshua Stephany, said the autopsies did not make any determination as to who killed whom.

A nearly three-hour standoff followed the shootout, which ended when law enforcement agencies stormed the building, killed the gunman, and freed the hostages.GARBAGE!

The FBI released a chronology Monday that showed a half-hour passed from when Mateen warned of explosives to when the police stormed the building.

According to the timeline, the first negotiation with the gunman began at 2:48 a.m. and lasted 9 minutes. The second call, at 3:03 a.m., lasted 16 minutes; the third, at 3:24 a.m., 3 minutes. Canty said the police used the lull to assess the situation and save hostages.The official timeline. Pfffft!

At 4:21 a.m., according to the timeline, police officers pulled an air-conditioning unit out of a dressing room wall to save eight people.

Eight minutes later, some victims relayed that Mateen was threatening to strap bombs to the hostages. About 32 minutes later, the SWAT team and the sheriff’s office bomb squad tried to break in. The chief said it took officers time to assemble the explosives to do so.

Mina and other officials vigorously defended the handling of the siege from criticism that they waited too long to go in, noting that throughout the lull, officers put themselves at great risk by going into the club to rescue people.

“I think there was this misconception that we didn’t do anything for three hours, and that’s absolutely not true,” he said....

"Marcus Dwayne Robertson, Omar Mateen’s Possible Teacher: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know". A light should go off in your head when you remember Ali Mohamed." --xymphora

"A man accused of aiding a foiled plot to bomb a Kansas military post on behalf of the Islamic State pleaded guilty to conspiracy Monday. Alexander E. Blair admitted in a Topeka federal court that he lent $100 to a friend, John T. Booker, to pay for storage of a bomb that Booker planned to detonate last year outside the Fort Riley military post, about 60 miles west of Topeka. Prosecutors say Booker, 21, planned the attack with two contacts who were confidential FBI informants. Agents arrested Booker in 2015 when he was trying to arm the bomb, which was actually a fake. Booker pleaded guilty in February to one count each of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to destroy government property with an explosive. Prosecutors said Blair and Booker met at a mosque in Topeka and had similar views about waging jihad against the US military."

"ISIS has found a way to pierce US counter-terrorism defenses". I'm seeing a lot of this ridiculous 'analysis' which depends on studiously not seeing the obvious problems with the Official Stories of the attacks. -- xymphora

"Gun control, a controversial, emotional issue, promises to play large in a campaign year as the debate over gun laws has been reinvigorated following the mass shooting this month at an Orlando nightclub popular with the gay community. Despite both parties presenting proposals to tighten certain aspects of gun laws, attempts to craft any bipartisan compromise ran aground last week leading to Monday’s series of votes that served as a way for both sides to send political messages."And who benefits?

Trump backtracks on guns-in-clubs statementIt's the latest scuffle between Trump, those supporting him, and the political establishment.Looks like the establishment is winning:
"Donald Trump tries to hit reset by firing campaign manager" by Tracy Jan and James Pindell Globe Staff June 21, 2016

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump fired his campaign manager Monday in a major shake-up that comes amid infighting and frustration among Republican Party leaders who complain that the presumptive nominee’s effort is hobbled by poor organization, anemic staffing, an undisciplined message, and plunging poll numbers.

The sudden firing of Corey Lewandowski, unusual in its timing just a month before the nominating convention, follows a stretch of bad publicity about Trump’s response to the Orlando mass shooting and his disparaging comments about Muslims and a Mexican-American judge.

To some Republican strategists, the firing is a chance for Trump to reshape the narrative of his campaign. But, they say, the departure will make little difference if Trump himself does not change.

“There’s a growing realization within the Trump campaign that personality and bluster alone is not going to win this race,” said Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist and Mitt Romney campaign veteran.

“This could be an opportunity for Trump to turn around his campaign, but Trump needs to perform better as a candidate,” he said. “It was clear he didn’t have a campaign manager who could keep him on the rails, tell him when he was wrong, and keep him acting more like a presidential candidate.”You tell Trump he's wrong and he says "Your fired!"

Lewandowski, a hard-charging New Hampshire operative from Lowell, had guided Trump through a historic, hugely successful primary in which he knocked out 16 opponents, many better financed and better organized.

After he was fired, Lewandowski defended his work for the campaign and his style and pledged in a CNN interview that he would continue doing what he can to help Trump win in November. He said he had no idea why he was fired and disputed CNN reporting that he had antagonized Trump’s daughter Ivanka.That seems like a lame excuse for the real reasons he was dumped.

Lewandowski’s dismissal leaves Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman and chief strategist, in charge. Manafort, a Washington lobbyist, joined the campaign in March to manage the convention and serve as his delegate wrangler.Now a Washington insider is in charge, huh?

“Getting rid of a campaign manager is not something undertaken lightly, especially for someone like Trump who prizes loyalty,” said Eric Fehrnstrom, a Republican strategist and former Romney adviser. “It means pressure for change was coming from many different directions, that it was getting loud, and that it could no longer be ignored.”From what direction exactly?I'm told this is “a positive sign, the right kind of pivot,’’ and it “means a more professional, disciplined campaign.”

Within minutes of Lewandowski’s firing becoming public, Michael Caputo, one of Trump’s senior advisers, tweeted out “Ding Dong the witch is dead!” along with a clip from the “Wizard of Oz.’’ It was a sign of the bitter campaign infighting that often revolved around Lewandowski.

Caputo, who according to the Associated Press was poised to serve as director of communications for the campaign at the GOP convention, resigned after firing off the celebratory tweet.

Several New Hampshire Republicans credited Lewandowski for taking Trump’s campaign, viewed widely as an improbable sideshow when he launched his candidacy one year ago, this far.Would have been nice to have gotten his take on Trump, may he rest in peace.

Polls show Clinton leading Trump nationally by an average of 6 points.That's it? The pre$$ led me to believe his campaign was crashing to the ground (as long as it is just his business shuttle and not a campaign plane, 'kay?)

She is also beating him in key swing states such as New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, and Virginia, but Trump is leading in Georgia and North Carolina.

"In 1969, Boston’s Garment District was not just a place on the map, it was a way of life. The idea that it might all vanish was inconceivable. Forty-seven years later...."The war is over.

"Supreme Court turns away challenge to Connecticut ban on many semiautomatic weapons" by Adam Liptak New York Times June 20, 2016

WASHINGTON — It has been eight years since the Supreme Court recognized an individual right to keep guns at home for self-defense.

When the court in December rejected a Second Amendment case from a Chicago suburb, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, dissented. They accused the majority of abdicating its responsibility to enforce the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. (Scalia wrote the majority opinion in the Heller case, which was decided by a 5-to-4 vote.)Then he died!

“The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting,” Thomas wrote. “Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons.”

In a separate development Monday, a lawyer for families of some victims of the Sandy Hook massacre told a judge that the Remington Arms company should be held accountable for selling the public semiautomatic rifles, including one that was used in that attack.

The argument came during a court hearing on Remington Arms’ request to dismiss a lawsuit by relatives of nine children and adults killed at the school on Dec. 14, 2012, and a teacher who survived the shooting. Judge Barbara Bellis, who rebuffed a similar request by Remington and other defendants in April, did not rule Monday.

"Prosecutors contend that 25-year-old Christopher Jackson targeted 25-year-old Keosha Gilmore because she would not return his affection toward her, and that he took advantage of a long friendship that began in their adolescence to put himself where he knew she would be. Defense attorney Kevin Mitchell told jurors in his opening statement that Jackson shot Gilmore, but the defense attorney said Jackson’s actions were not those of a cold-blooded killer but those of a mentally ill man who created a fantasy world in which he believed Gilmore was in love with him...."

He once said “I will always be there for her,’’ but mental illness left him unable to know right from wrong.

OK, paper never really went away, but retailers are seeing a surge in day-planner sales among young women and, where the big dollars are, millennials are now buying more greeting cards than baby boomers, reports the industry’s trade association.

“The demographic has really shifted,” said Sarah Turk, a stationery analyst at the research firm IBISWorld. “Instead of it being more of an older consumer that values paper, we’re seeing a lot of millennials also purchasing paper products.

“I think that especially in a digital age,” she adds, “paper now has more value than it ever has.”

It’s practically a law of nature that children rediscover things their parents or grandparents have long discarded (hence the fedoras on hipster heads). While the trend of sharing thoughts with ink will not revive the fortunes of giant paper producers shredded by falling revenue, it has bolstered the spirits of folks who make a living with cards and stationery....Signed....

--more--"I'll bet new$papers are jealo.... awwwww, skip it. Just under the front-page fold:

NEW YORK — Liberal champion Elizabeth Warren is among those being vetted to be the running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, a person familiar with the process said Tuesday, raising the possibility of a historic ticket of two women.

Warren, Massachusetts’ senior senator, is among several Democrats who are being seriously considered for the role, said the person, who wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss the deliberations.

News that Clinton’s team is spending valuable resources examining Warren’s background is a sign that Warren’s potential candidacy — the subject of continuous speculation in Washington political circles for months — has reached a new level of seriousness.

Doubling down on the historic nature of Clinton’s bid to be the first woman elected president by adding another woman in the vice presidential slot would present some risks and might even seem far-fetched. But it also would generate enormous enthusiasm for the Democrats among liberals and young people, especially young women.Aren't a lot of them already voting for Hillary, or are they all going to hell as someone once said?

And, after all, presidential campaigns have featured pairings of men for centuries.

The deadline is July 25, five weeks.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Warren is on Clinton’s vice presidential short list with at least two others: Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, a well-liked lawmaker from an important general election battleground state who also has foreign policy experience as a member of the Armed Services Committee; and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro of Texas, a 41-year-old rising star.

Mentioned separately as contenders have been Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, among others.All battleground states except Texas, and Castro could help turn it into one as far as narrative. Warren looks like a weak choice now. I think TPTB bankers would rather have a President Trump than a Vice President Warren. Hillary ain't no spring chicken, no disrespect intended.

Clinton and Warren don’t have a close relationship, which could hurt Warren’s chances. She lacks deep experience in the federal bureaucracy or longstanding ties on the Hill. She has scant foreign policy experience. And she comes from a state that is solidly in the Democratic column, even without her on the ticket.

Picking Warren as her No. 2 also would cause trouble for the more-centrist Clinton with the business community, much of which loathes the Massachusetts liberal and her populist positions. That dislike burns particularly deeply among the Wall Street firms that Warren has made a career of criticizing for their role in the 2008 economic meltdown.

While Clinton has outlined a meaty Wall Street reform agenda, she has resisted calls from primary rival Senator Bernie Sanders and the left to embrace breaking up the biggest banks as a specific policy goal. Rather, Clinton has focused on addressing looming risks in the so-called “shadow banking” system – bank-like activities such as lending that are increasingly being conducted by hedge funds, investment banks, and other entities that are not as tightly regulated as traditional banks.It makes you wonder where the current administration of which she was a part has been.

As Clinton prepares for the general election, her team is focusing on boosting her popularity among African-Americans, Hispanics, women, and voters under 35 years old.Why would she need to do that? That's how she "won" the primaries, we have been told.

She fared well with minorities and women during the primary race, but she fell short among the younger voters who flocked to Sanders and are fond of Warren.Like they would go for Trump?

Regardless of whom Clinton selects, Warren is expected to play a major role as a surrogate during the campaign....Already is.

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